Osama Manzar is the Founder-Director of Digital Empowerment Foundation and Chair of Manthan and mBillionth Awards. He is member, advisory board, at Alliance for Affordable Internet and has co-authored NetCh@kra–15 Years of Internet in India and Internet Economy of India. He tweets @osamamanzar. Manzar’s complete bio can be read here.
“This is the spot that gets a signal. Apart from this the entire village and in fact the entire island is unconnected” said Mukesh (name changed). Sawariyadigar is a village located on a river island in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra. The village has no access to the world outside; no road, rail, bridge, or even connectivity.
Details“Arrey yaar! Network aa hi nahi raha hai! (oh man there is no network)” groaned Saurabh, my colleague as we started our journey from Turtuk to Leh. The 200 km journey is amongst the most scenic roads I have been on. I was relying on his mobile hotspot since even with two sims I was disconnected.
DetailsThe joy of skywatching is never limited to young children. A sense of humility and wonder sets in effortlessly when one looks up into the vast expanse spotting the stars, constellations and planets. In a world where clear night skies are hard to find because of light pollution, spending the whole night understanding astronomy is a great treat. Even more exciting is the fact that digital mediums help in gaining more knowledge about the cosmic world.
DetailsSTEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) subjects not only fosters innovative thinking and serves as a foundation on which many skills get developed but instills confidence, stimulates the mind to think out of the box, provides a good platform to build human relationships through peer interaction, gives better opportunities to connect with the real world and keeps the curiosity to learn alive.
DetailsI left for Jasidih, Jharkhand on 5th of February for training for Digital Didis’ who are going to work in the Jamui district of Bihar. Boarding the train from Kolkata Station, my mind was filled with all the thoughts that arose from the conversations I had with my family and colleagues when they got to know that I will be travelling alone to Bihar.
DetailsA few miles away from a town that is famously recognized for donkeys, Barabanki, one can glide to the rhythmic tune emanating from the hand looms along the lanes with kacha and pakka houses spread around the villages.
DetailsPammi Shukla is a Digital Sarthak training and mentoring Women Entrepreneurs of Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh. She shares about her experience, “A monotonous schedule, a 9 am to 3 pm job, a teaching career, was all that I had before the onset of the devastating pandemic.
DetailsRekha Kumari is a Digital Sarthak training and mentoring Women Entrepreneurs of Ramgarh, Jharkhand sharing her story, “I have heard stories of inspirational women all over the globe through the means of newspapers or sometimes television channels.
DetailsBabli from Nuh, Haryana shares her story, “I come from a social setting where people are riddled with the mentality that a woman is meant for getting married, cleaning, giving birth to kids and then looking after them. This was something that has always disturbed me as a woman myself.
DetailsAarti is a Woman Entrepreneur from Bharatpur, Rajasthan who shares,“Imagine being locked up in a room for years and having missed all the developments that happen in the world outside the confined room.
DetailsNeesha is one of the Women Entrepreneurs from Bharatpur, Rajasthan who trained under Digital Sarthak program and she shares her success story, “I was a mother, a housewife and someone who was trying to achieve more than what was expected of me.
Details“The trip to Assam was one of a kind and also it was my first visit to the state of simplicity, as I would like to call it. But, ‘simplicity’ would be hard to justify if we were to compare the most popular North-Eastern city, Guwahati, with the cultural capital Nagaon.
DetailsIndia level Civil Society Consultation to contribute to the campaign of United Nation’s ‘Global Digital Compact’ with the presence of UN Secretary General’s Office of Envoy on Technology, Dr Amandeep Singh Gill- there will be about 100 civil society organizations and as many community practices from all over India.
DetailsSeven years later, on the 16th of December 2002, the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) was established to connect and empower India’s one billion plus people, taking the first step in the country’s digital development story. At the time, most Indians did not have access to information, education, and opportunities.
Details“Chal chal, saanp seedi khelte hain (come come let’s play snakes and ladders)” said Saleem (name changed), an 8-year-old to his friend. They both proceeded to the Makerspace stall of the Digital Empowerment Foundation. Pankaj, DEF’s project officer for the makerspace project, was surrounded by 15 children, all expressing their excitement over the activities he was curating for them.
DetailsCritical thinking skills are much valued in the current world and often enables the new generation to question the relevance of the practices in society. This proves to be refreshing in bringing open mindedness and different outlooks on any situation. These skills will further empower students to actively participate and contribute to the world by connecting with the scientific temperament. DEF has been actively engaged in focussing on STEM education through its well monitored programs.
DetailsSamarth SoochnaPreneur program, where rural people who are differently abled are trained to be digital entrepreneurs, has become successful on every front. It has been able to provide digital services and awareness to the unconnected society whose welfare depends on it and at the same time empowered the lives of those who were disempowered by the norms, limitations and standards set by the society.
DetailsA privileged few to whom information is available at the tip of their fingers take access to information for granted and it becomes hard to fully grasp what the consequences of lack of such access to information are. Nearly half of India’s rural and semi-urban women and adolescent girls face various health related issues due to lack of adequate knowledge about menstrual hygiene.
DetailsWith changing times, Chanderi is now better recognized for the popular fabric that the town has been weaving for years, while originally it was the other way around. With the rising sun that reflects its warm rays on at least half a dozen lakes distributed resourcefully across town, one of the numerous signs of prevailed prosperity, the sight of milking of cows that graze the lush hills surrounding Chanderi from which many women procure firewood on a daily basis to provide meals for their families cannot be missed.
DetailsSustainable living is not something that exists only in the urban dictionary. The Digital Didi program has allowed us to look at this way of living in a rural and conservative set up. Social and financial exclusions have been around for quite some time and the efforts to bridge these gaps have also been taken up.
DetailsMany SoochnaPreneurs across India have eventually found ways to help their communities grow in bigger ways. The training that skillfully empowers their empathising personality has pushed them to seek better means of bringing further changes on a large scale and here is a testimonial to support this.
DetailsSTEM has been the talk of many interventions in the education field and here is an excerpt from a DEF Dialogue which explores this aspect along with looking at the very definition of it from a purpose oriented perspective.
DetailsSoochnaPreneur program is one of the unique programs launched by DEF which always brings surprising elements into the sphere of social work. Most often, the SoochnaPreneurs share their stories of their learnings quite vividly and here is one such anecdote from Tarana Nazmi of Jharkhand.
DetailsHomelessness is a worldwide problem and government agencies and civil society organisations have come up with various initiatives to suppress the problem. However, none of the initiatives have been completely successful.
DetailsTea gardens of West Bengal spread mostly over the northern part of the state near sub-Himalayan hills and adjacent terrain. The population in these regions majorly belongs to scheduled caste and scheduled tribes, thus limiting their access to various necessities in life.
DetailsThe success stories of SoochnaPreneurs, Digital Sarthaks and Samarth SoochnaPreneurs continue to grow in quantity and quality as they are making the best use of the support system, resources and skills to improve their living. Nisha Tuti is a woman entrepreneur from Jharkhand and she is well acquainted with grocery business.
DetailsIn recent years, the notion of rural development has evolved; converging itself to governance and digital inclusion. The aim is to provide the basic services to the community inclusive of all those processes through which common people can access their confidential data and information about the government and its various development programs.
DetailsThe Digital Empowerment Foundation has always believed in a bottom up approach. All our programs are developed with consultation with stakeholders at the ground level. From district coordinators to SoochnaPreneurs, we regularly speak with them to understand the needs and requirements of the communities we work with.
DetailsThe Digital Empowerment Foundation presented its work at the Tenth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning hosted by Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and Athabasca University (AU) from 14 to 16 September 2022.
DetailsWhen Indians termed ‘inspirational’ the story of a girl who climbed up a hill for a signal to access online classes during the pandemic and sat under an umbrella in the sun to study, Osama Manzar shook his turbaned head in disbelief. “It was deprivation news, not inspiration news.”
DetailsFor more information, please mail us at info@defindia.org
